Owner

Current status

Detailed Description

pam_ecryptfs is a PAM module that allows to mount a private part of the home directory (or the entire home directory) when a user logs in. However, using pam_ecryptfs in Fedora <=14 is complicated by the configuration style adopted by authconfig. This feature aims at simplifying this across various PAM users and integrating ecryptfs support into authconfig.

Benefit to Fedora

ecryptfs is a useful tool, but it is hard to configure under Fedora. Compared to encrypted partitions, for example, it easily lets the user do encrypted backups.

Scope

Changes are required to PAM, authconfig, and several pam users. All of these have been identified and patches posted to Bugzilla:

mount should show an ecryptfs mount for ~/Private and the files you created in step 3 should show up.

Log out and log in as root.

The ecryptfs mount should not be there anymore.

Contingency Plan

All patches have been committed to Rawhide in time for F15 branch, except the one for gdm. So ecryptfs as of February 9, 2011 won't work for graphical logins. This is a bug and it should be fixed before the release. If it is not fixed, the feature should not be considered complete and should not be included in the release notes.

Documentation

pam_ecryptfs(8) man page (note the man page is a bit Ubuntu-centric, we do not have /etc/pam.d/common-auth and the Fedora implementation will be different in order to support authconfig)

Release Notes

Fedora 15 brings in improved support for eCryptfs, a stacked cryptographic filesystem for Linux. Starting from Fedora 15, authconfig can be used to automatically mount a private encrypted part of the home directory when a user logs in.